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Saturday 30 May 2015

Saturday Rave: Western Wind. Anonymous.

Summertime...and the living is...

...um... 

...quite frankly, in England the living might involve more or less anything: hail, thunderstorms, rain, blistering heat, North winds, South, East or West winds, dead calm, wind that races round in circles and throws dust in your eyes...

Ah well. I suppose it keeps us humble.

Whether it's Summer or Winter where you are, here's a very short, very old* poem that describes very vividly Life As We Know It.

It's been set to music again and again. There's a good Wikipedia article about it HERE.

No one knows who wrote this poem, but whoever it was did a service to us all.

Western Wind

Western wind, when wilt thou blow,
That the small rain down can rain?
Christ, if my love were in my arms
And I in my bed again!

File:St James's Park Station sculptures – West Wind by Samuel Rabinovitch.jpg
West Wind (1928–9) by Samuel Rabinovitch, St James's Park Underground station, London. Photo by Tony Hisgett.

Word To Use Today: west. This word hasn't changed much in the last thousand years. It goes right back to the Sanskrit avástāt via the Latin vesper, which means evening. 

*This poem may be from the 1200s, though the first written-down version is dated about 1530.


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